I’m a conflicted night person, because I’m convinced morning people will live longer. I’m a learner who will likely never own a house because the available funds will support my need to know more. I’m right-brained and visual, which means everything needs to be in my sight in order to be remembered…aka I’m an organized mess. I try to advocate for small business because I don’t believe Walmart is the way we were supposed to live. I’m one of those people who love Jesus, but I’m not a Republican. To the students of Columbia Bible College, I’m the “Associate Dean”, but to the three little ones I live with I’m simply “Ka-leen”. (That wasn’t supposed to rhyme).
What do you do for fun?
As a current graduate student, “fun” is equivalent to “procrastination”. This includes:
- Kitchen conversations with housemates. (These are the best types of conversations.)
- Spanish practice time with my Guatemalan friends while they teach me how to properly cook tamales and empanadas.
- Pinterest. (If you don’t know, google it).
- Watching episodes of “Hoarders” and then getting rid of half my stuff.
- Connecting with friends with good coffee in hand.
- Blogging.
- Road trips.
What is your favourite community? Why?
I have many, but the most prominent in my mind is the one that exists within my home.
Four years ago, I moved into a house with a couple (college friends) and their 9-month old daughter. I had my own bedroom and bathroom in the basement, but we shared meals and conversation and movies together. It felt like an extension of college life, but with a small child to entertain us. I anticipated the arrangement would last for a year or so, but as we learned how to live together, we realized just how good we had it.
Today if you come to our house, you can see the family has grown and sharing life in 
community has continued: There are now three children, the oldest is 5, and the youngest is 2. So, if my friends want to go out for a coffee date after their kids are asleep? They can, because I’m home. And if I need help with my car, or need someone to offer direction and encouragement in various situations? We can talk about as we make dinner, or put the dishes away! (See above kitchen conversation comment.)
As a single 29 year old, living with this family has taught me more about marriage and parenting than I could ever read in a book: I’ve snuggled newborns freshly home from the hospital, and also been puked on more than once while helping out when the flu descends on our house. And I’ve loved it. Good community helps us identify what we can contribute to one another and understand how we are valuable.
As we’ve become more community-minded as a house, we tend to have a lot of visitors throughout the seasons: extended family members and friends will often take the guest room and join us in our routines. We care for one another, like family, and now I can’t imagine what living on my own would look like: it just seems lonely.
What is your superpower?
I think I would best describe it as “reader of people”. I tend to learn a great deal about people and situations from attention to non-verbal communicators while in dialogue.
How do you use it to build community?
In my past cross-cultural work in Costa Rica reading people has saved me many times: when cultural differences are present, body language will still often convey clear messages that you can understand if you read them. If language barriers are also a concern, we can still accomplish a great deal when we learn how to read one another. The more multi-cultural our world becomes, the more we’ll need to listen to the story beneath the spoken words in order to appreciate our differences and work collectively together.
My Three Favourite Things About Kathleen Are…
1. Her Blog. Yes. Kathleen’s blog has been in production much, much, much longer than this one. Rich with a variety of content, Kathleen’s blog yields funny and touching stories, poems, letters, and videos. Her great stuff makes me want to poach her wicked awesome talent for this blog.
2. She’s really, really, really nice. I dig nice people and am a firm believer that being nice is at the centre of community, leadership, business, learning, food, family, and playing boardgames with Stewart Burgess and Godfrey von Bismarck. Kathleen and I have been friends since, well, back in the day and I have always been struck, touched and inspired by her inclusive and accepting kindness. It’s a beautiful thing.
3. Best. Bullet-points. Ever. Oh did I smile and shout out a lot of “YES!”s as I perused what Kathleen does for fun. Oh, and I learned something new, too! And I really like Kathleen’s unique story about her family’s community – the kitchen conversations must be amazing!
…as told by John Horn